Against the high pressure from rights managers, the European Commission decided to ban certain copyright handling practices, mainly the obligation of an author not to move from a collective society to another.

On 16 July 2007, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes asked 24 European collecting societies managing copyright on behalf of music authors to eliminate the clause from their contracts preventing authors from moving to another collecting society.

The Commission had opened an investigation following complaints from broadcasting group RTL and the UK online music provider Music Choice. In February 2007, the Commission sent a formal statement of objections to the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) regarding the restrictiveness of certain business practices. In March 2007, CISAC proposed a set of draft commitments that the EU executive decided to market-test on 14 June 2007. On 10 July 2007, a large coalition of broadcasting corporations and telecoms providers sent a letter to Commission President José Manuel Barroso and Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes, protesting against CISAC commitments and urging the EU executive not to accept settlement proposals.

The Commission believes the present proposed measure is meant to support the authors, who will be free to choose what collecting society they want. The Commission also asks for the elimination of the territorial restrictions preventing a collecting society from offering licences to commercial users outside their domestic territory. The EC considers that the territorial restrictions introduced by 17 collecting societies in their contracts lead to a strict segmentation of the market on a national basis. The result is that a commercial user such as RTL wanting to provide pan-european services will have to negotiate separately with each national collecting society.

Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said: "This decision will benefit cultural diversity by encouraging collecting societies to offer composers and lyricists a better deal in terms of collecting the money to which they are entitled. It will also facilitate the development of satellite, cable and internet broadcasting, giving listeners more choice and giving authors more potential revenue. However, the Commission has been careful to ensure that the benefits of the collective rights management system are not put into question in terms of levels of royalties for authors and available music repertoire."

CISAC argues that "the principle that creators are free to join whatever society they choose is already well established and widely applied by societies throughout the EEA. As for the issue of exclusivity, the EEA societies have accepted for decades that contracts between them should be based on non-exclusive arrangements." In CISAC's opinion, the decision will "inevitably lead to a catastrophic fragmentation of repertoire and therefore to legal uncertainty for music users".

The European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) has also criticized the Commission's decision considering it "an attack on cultural diversity" because it will affect small and medium-sized businesses and individual writers. On 3 July 2008, ECSA threatened to "play havoc" with the music market in case the Commission proceeded with the decision. David Ferguson, a film and television composer, spokesman for ECSA, said the ban would concern the growing markets of online, cable and satellite retransmission of music and not the traditional forms of exploitation.

Kroes's spokesperson accused ECSA of speaking only on behalf of the large collecting societies, failing to represent the wider category of music authors.

The decision applies immediately and the collecting societies have 120 days to inform the Commission about the implementation of the requested measures.

Commission cracks down on music copyright managers (17.07.2008)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/commission-cracks-music-copyrig...

Antitrust: Commission prohibits practices which prevent European collecting societies offering choice to music authors and users (16.07.2008)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1165&...

ECSA: response to European Commission antitrust decision (16.07.2008)
http://www.britishacademy.com/public-news/ecsa-press-release-in-respon...

Proposed Commitments for Performing Rights under Article 9 of Regulation no.1/2003 (7.03.2007)
http://ec.europa.eu/comm/competition/antitrust/cases/decisions/38698/c...

CISAC regrets the European Commission's decision concerning reciprocal representation contracts (16/07/08)
http://www.cisac.org/CisacPortal/listeArticle.do?numArticle=900&me...

Music authors 'at war' with Commission over copyrights (4.07.2008)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/music-authors-war-commission-co...